The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-02-11

bCl WIN you Oh lut IouHudtloit u JAab I'd
cred altar human home" [Applausel
And friends, | say that every bit as
much in the interest of boyhood and Of
manhood as ! say it ia the interest Of wo-
manhood. The human question includes
the woman question, and is the broad and
many-sided one which attracts the thought
full and generous mind and so, when |
think about the boyhood and the manhood
thousand pupils have gathered around me
in the reception room at different periods;
when | remember my own nephews and
nieces growing up to manhood's and wo-
threads Of silver that gather on my fore
head, feel that in LIES serene meridian !
have attained the right to speak as ones
own sister might speak to the youth and
the young man who will listen to what a
woman thinks on this great theme. And,
friends, / think that the fact that young
man knows that whether he drinks beer.
plays cards, smokes tobacco or goes to
to the smiles and courtesy of the fairest
and purest beings he has ever known (and
those are the young women of every pure
circle think when he knows that these
girls dare not frown ON his lower mode Of
life-because there is not one in hundred
who has the pluck and talent to hold her
self truly independent OF him and OF his
ilk in their lower mode of life--I think
that when ne knows that proposal from
himself to be responded to by most
Willing yes is the only way out OF de-
pendenee and oddity and Teproach to the
girls of his sect or Of his town and village
that fact, put with the fact of internal
temptation and outward temptation, i'm
peIs what would otherwise be noble young
men to destruction with The force of gfavi-
tation, and the persistency of fate. And
it is for their sakes that would have wo-
manhood in this nation able to make the
same demand on manhood that manhood
has made upon us women. Applause.
Out of the fires Of cruelty, for purposes
wholly selfish, primeval and medieval man
wrought virtue for half the human race.
Thank God in these modern days Chris
tian manhood and Christian womanhood
are working out virtue as the only toll
Grated estate of the other half of the
human race. God speed the day when
statute and custom shall make the law one
leveling up, never leveling down, and hold
to an equal account the two integers of the
human family. That day shall come sooner
than we think That day is FASTENED by
the same avenues Of industrial avocations
opened to women. That day is fastened
by every law made for their protection.
What do you think about the laws,
friends? What do You think about the
laws, dear ladies here assembled? What
do you think OF them, noble Christian
men, who very likely did not know what
they were, any more than did not know
what they were, though had lived under
them all my life long2 This age of ten
years which have described. is the pre-
scribed age in twenty states ont of thirty
eight in this Republic, just the age at
which there comes no protection to girl;
and the age of seven is the age in the
neighboring State Of Delaware, Colorado.
the Centennial State. in answer to the petit
ton of the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union last winter lifted the age to eigh-
teen, and stands in the very van ahead of
England and ahead of every nation on the
globe. LApplause. Massachusetts, has
wheeled into line. little behind Colorado,
and my own home State of Wisconsin has
taken a splendid position, just the details
OF which will not weary you by giving,
but want to ask yon to think with me
about an isolated instance, because it Is
one case that comes to us as a generaliza-
ton Of many similar cases. When | think
of this case, which occurred in Chicago
just before Christmas, say to myselfafter
two thousand years Of Christianity, in the
kindest nation toward women that the sun
shines upon, and with the most good men
in it that any nation shows, the laws are
such, the public sentiment is such, that we
may well ask the question why need any
man think or care for the consequences
when he would do women wrong?
A dark, bitter, winter night a girl, with
but one arm, slight of figure, girl of sew
enteen years old, going along the street.
and there in the heart of the night there
comes TO her the sacred and agonizing or
deal of motherhood. There in her immeas-
urable misery and sin, with no eye to pity
and no arm to save, bewildered. half mn
conscious and half frozen, she finally moves
on along the street. meets a policeman, is
duly taken into custody, brings up at the
Jail, is charged before the court with the
crime of infanticide. Think of it, Where
was her betrayer2 Where was the man
who was as much the father of that little
dead babe as she its mother Bone Of Lis
bone, flesh of his flesh, where was he?
That poor girl had over him claim the
most sacred that is beneath the stars, and
vet in the hour of her direst extremity,
more beast than bruteor savage he deserts
her and leaves her to her shame. Ana
! Justice, always so generous toward the
weak, pours cut its fountains upon her
| She gets enough of justice, of which the
strong SO often go unwhipped. He, that